1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus for acquiring via a communication line, data saved by a control appliance having a storage apparatus such as a plurality of programmable logic controllers (hereinafter referred to as a "PLC") and programmable controllers (hereinafter referred to as a "PC") connected to each other, and for storage, acquiring, and writing the data in useful formats.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 44 is a block diagram for showing an arrangement of a conventional data acquiring/storing apparatus. In this drawing, reference numeral 1 shows a control apparatus for controlling an appliance connected thereto. To this control apparatus 1, a CRT2 functioning as a display unit, a keyboard 3 functioning as an input unit, and a control appliance 4 containing a plurality of PLCs and a plurality of PCs are connected.
Within the controller 1, there are provided a CPU 11 for executing a user program, a memory 12 for storing a user application program, an auxiliary storage unit 13 having a database formatted storage file 131 for storing data acquired from the control appliance 4, an interface 141 for interfacing to the CRT2, another interface 142 for interfacing to the keyboard 3, and also a further interface 143 for interfacing to the control appliance 4.
The conventional data acquiring/storing apparatus is arranged in the above-described manner. In this data acquiring/storing apparatus, for instance, the database formatted storage file 131 is formed inside the auxiliary storage unit 13 in accordance with the user application program formed by the user himself, and then the data acquired from the control appliance 4 is stored into this storage file 131.
The conventional data processing apparatus is arranged as described above, and the user himself must produce the user application program in order to form the storage file for storing therein the necessary data acquired from the control appliance. Therefore, this user programming work would require huge amounts of workload, time; and knowledge, so that the efficiency of programming work would be lowered, but also a large amount of workload would be required to correct the user application program. A similar heavy workload is required to produce such programs, i.e., setting of conditions used to acquire the data from the control appliance, and setting of the production instruction to the control appliance, and also to form a descriptive file used to store write data to be written into the control appliance. No one can readily perform this work.
Also, in order that the data acquired from the control appliance is made as a suitable data format for the user, a further fine setting work should be carried out, resulting in a further heavy workload.
Moreover, as to setting of the data transmission between the control appliance and the data processing apparatus, this setting work cannot be easily performed by the user.
In such a case that a plurality of control appliances are connected to the data processing apparatus while transmitting the data, there is another problem that this data transmission would require a large amount of time.
Also, even when the end request for notifying the end of data processing is inputted, this data processing apparatus does not execute the end processing in response to this end request unless predetermined waiting time has passed. Accordingly, the response characteristic to the end request would be deteriorated.